PUNE, India, 6 June 2007 — Bollywood stars Amitabh Bachchan and Aamir Khan may not have featured in a movie together but are both the subject of official investigations in the purchase of land in Pune.

After investigating Amitabh Bachchan’s 24-acre land deal in the Pawana dam area of Maval town in Pune district, the state government has ordered the chief district administrator to investigate two two-acre land purchases in the same area by Aamir Khan, another leading Bollywood star.

According to revenue officials from the Pune district civic administration, Aamir Khan, like Amitabh Bachchan, had produced documents claiming to be a farmer owning agricultural land in the town of Shahabad in Rajasthan. The authenticity of Aamir’s claim of being a farmer will be probed and the documents submitted by him scrutinized. If it is found that Aamir had produced forged documents, he will be prosecuted according to the provisions of the law under various cognizable and nonbailable sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the land would be confiscated, said a senior civic official.

According to laws in Maharashtra, only farmers are allowed to sell or buy agricultural lands.

Baba Adhav, a social activist, said that he planned to intensify a “sons-of-the-soil” campaign in Maval, where a number of industrialists, movie stars and politicians have allegedly purchased lands through fraudulent means, depriving local farmers of their rights. He added that with Amitabh Bachchan’s Pawana dam land deal coming under the scanner, he would take the opportunity to expose all such land deals in the region.

“Amitabh’s land deal is just the tip of the iceberg and a number of leading actors, actresses, industrialists, politicians, bureaucrats and even foreigners have purchased agricultural lands in Maval and Mulshi using forged documents,” claimed Adhav. “The lands should be owned by the sons of the soil and not by intruders,” he asserted.

He said many farmers lost their lands when the Pawana dam was constructed and that the government, in the last 40 years, has not bothered to rehabilitate these farmers while the lands, which they were supposed to receive as compensation, have been sold to pseudo farmers. He added that land rights activists have requested the district administrator to investigate all land deals in the region and drive out intruders.

On Monday, Amitabh filed an appeal at the Allahabad High Court challenging an order of the court of the additional divisional commissioner, Faizabad, which had dismissed his appeal and declared him not a farmer and not the owner of agricultural land in the village of Daulatpur in the Barabanki district. The actor has pleaded in his appeal that the Faizabad court was not competent and the matter was outside its jurisdiction, and hence the order passed was invalid, illegal and void.

The appeal will be heard tomorrow.